The suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt told federal investigators that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the attack, CBS News has learned.
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The source said Abdulmutallab told investigators he was guided by al-Awalki to detonate the bomb over U.S. soil, unlike the failed British bomber plot in 2006 when the bombers were instructed to detonate bombs on airliners over the ocean on the way to the U.S. so that there would be no evidence left behind.

There’s also a discussion of the legality of the US government targeting al Awlaki:

CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports that al-Awlaki’s U.S. citizenship – he was born in New Mexico – will have little bearing on American military and intelligence efforts to locate and kill him.

U.S. officials, both current and former, tell Logan that if an individual is deemed to be part of a terrorist network that is a threat to American security in any way, they can be targeted legitimately.

Malaysia’s arrest of 10 terror suspects was part of a sweep targeting the hard-line Islamic sect often associated with al-Qaida, but any link to the Nigerian suspected in the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner remains unclear, a senior official said Friday.

Malaysia’s home minister announced the arrests Wednesday under the Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without trial, saying they were mainly foreigners linked to an international terrorist network and posed a security threat. He declined to give further details.

Activists said they included four men from Syria, two from Nigeria and one each from Yemen and Jordan.
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The senior Malaysian official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the suspects were believed to be followers of the orthodox Wahhabi sect, which seeks to purify Islamic beliefs and supports the establishment of Muslim states based on Islamic laws. Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaida are believed to have been influenced by Wahhabi doctrines.
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The newspaper said Friday that police were investigating the possibility that some of the suspects were in Yemen at the same time as Abdulmutallab when he was allegedly undergoing training. It didn’t say how it obtained the information.

However, the Malaysian official said there were no confirmed links at this stage between the suspects and Abdulmutallab. He said the arrests were aimed at controlling Wahhabism amid concerns it could feed violence among extremist Muslims in Malaysia.

The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a U.S. passenger plane on Christmas met in a remote mountainous area of Yemen with regional al-Qaida leaders, possibly including a radical American cleric who was also in contact with the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Yemen’s deputy prime minister said Thursday.

However, Rashad al-Alimi insisted that 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was recruited by al-Qaida in Britain, before he arrived in Yemen last summer, and that he obtained the explosives used in the failed attack after he left Yemen.

Mr. Faisal’s name surfaced much more recently in investigations into Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of the attempted attack on a Northwest Airlines flight.

In an online posting in May 2005, under the name “farouk1986,” Mr. Abdulmutallab referred to Mr. Faisal as a cleric he had listened to, according to American military and law enforcement authorities.

In his posting, Mr. Abdulmutallab wrote: “I thought once they are arrested, no one hears about them for life and the keys to their prison wards are thrown away. That’s what I heard Sheik Faisal of U.K. say (he has also been arrested I heard).”

All the stories about AbdulMutallab from people who knew him have a few consistent themes. He was quiet, he was polite, he was humble. He never acted as someone who came from privilege. He cared about other Muslims.

If what is said about what he tried to do is correct, among the many tragedies that resulted from his horrible decision is the waste of a young person with so much potential who could have done great good good for the ummah and for humanity.

I have to say that this story has affected me personally quite a bit although I have been hesitant to talk about it. Certainly I have great anger towards whoever convinced this young brother that this was a good thing to do and I am extremely grateful to God that no one was killed on the plane. Of course, as far as we know, AbdulMutallab acted freely and he is responsible for the decisions he made as well.

Ya Allaah, it is only You towards whom we turn for assistance. May Allaah have mercy upon Ummat Muhammad and Bani Adam.

I admit to having a similar response. He really does sound like a human being with a lot of good qualities, and now he’s going to live out his life among prison degenerates and die behind bars…It’s hard not to get angry but maybe that’s the point…

The bomber also praised the 9/11 terrorist attacks when he was a teenager, telling one schoolfriend they were “an act of war”. The unnamed friend said: “We were talking about 9/11. I was saying under no circumstances could it ever be OK to kill all those innocent people. He was much more equivocal.

“He called 9/11 an act of war – American troops were on Saudi soil and had humiliated Muslim countries so these actions might be necessary. That’s the only time I had an argument with him.”

US troops were invited into Saudi Arabia by the royal family. There is precedent for making military alliances with Western nations. No less an authority than Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (Mr. Wahhabism) and Ibn Saud entered into an offensive alliance with the English to help bring down the Ottoman empire, since it was unconscionable to them as ethnic supremacists that a Turk could be considered equal to an Arab, let alone govern Arabs. “Abd al-Wahhab was, in part reacting to the old ethnocentric belief tht only Arabs can represent the one true and authentic Islam.”

While consistently condemning non-Muslim influences and rejecting any form of cooperation with the West, in reality the Wahhabis were incited and supported by English colonialists to rebel against the Ottomans, which effectively meant that Wahhabis sided with non-Muslim Englishmen against their Muslim Ottoman enemies. Moreover, while condemning all forms of nationalism as an evil Western invention, in reality Wahhabism was a pro-Arab nationalistic movement that rejected Turkish dominance over Arabs under the guise of defending the one true Islam.

I would appreciate some of our UK readers and contributors stepping up to help us sort bulls*** from substance in what’s being spit out in the UK press right now.

For example, is The Times considered mainstream media? Left-wing, right-wing? Reliably objective or not? How should I know. I’m in America.

But anyway, here’s a little something from the Times today about Abdulmutallab’s participation in organizing a ‘War on Terror’ week protest:

His role in organising War on Terror Week is the first indication that during his years in London he was heavily involved in radical political activity. Experts believe that this would have put him at risk of being groomed by al-Qaeda recruiters who routinely prey on such radical religious and political gatherings. “Before someone goes off for explosives training they have to be converted to the cause of al-Qaeda,” said Professor Anthony Glees, of the University of Buckingham.

“I think that happened in London in the case of Abdulmutallab, as has happened to many others. He is one of a considerable number of people who have turned to al-Qaeda after being recruited in the UK. This recruitment often goes on where political events take place. Those who speak at such events are not terrorists, but they are being irresponsible if they do not realise that what they say could contribute to the radicalisation of people who could then be recruited into terror.”

Is the fact that a degenerate like Glees is being quoted in the Times ‘normal’ for that paper, or is this an alarming sign that thinkers from way out in the right-wing universe are being ‘mainstreamed’?

Where has Glees been making regular appearances in the UK media? He seems more like a Hannibal Lecter type among UK right-wingers. They only wheel him out into the MSM when the s*** really hits the fan…

Our own zombie Islamaphobes are crawling out of the swamp over here. Steven Emerson was on ABC’s morning show yesterday, not a place you normally find him.

The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the same Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times.

The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI’s interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training during interrogation by the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by Mr. al-Awlaki.

“It was Awlaki who indoctrinated him,” the official said. “He was told, ‘You are going to be the tip of the spear of the Muslim nation.'”

In his FBI interrogation, according to the U.S. intelligence official, Mr. Abdulmutallab spoke of being in a room in Yemen receiving Muslim blessings and prayers from Mr. al-Awlaki, along with a number of other men “all covered up in white martyrs’ garments,” and known only by code names and “abu” honorifics.

The official said such clothing and the lack of familiarity among the men suggests al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula intends to use the men in that room in suicide missions.

The intelligence official’s description comes in the wake of several reports that Yemen is breeding scores of jihadists ready to strike the West.

Yemen’s top diplomat said Tuesday that hundreds of al Qaeda militants are in his country and pleaded for foreign help and intelligence in rooting them out.

They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told the Times of London.

Not sure what to make of the FBI interrogation, but this part of the article gave me a nice chuckle:

“Several British news sources, including Sky News and the Daily Mail, have reported, in vague terms, that authorities suspect unspecified links between Mr. Abdulmutallab and Mr. al-Awlaki. Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has said an al-Awlaki/Abdulmutallab link “appears” to be the case.”

Terms like ‘in vague terms’, ‘suspect’, ‘unspecified links’, and ‘appears’ really make this link b/w Awlaki and the Nigerian worthy of headline news, eh? Awlaki seems to have become a real convenient bogeyman.